


Tell me a story

by MiaStory



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Kissing, Love Confessions, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaStory/pseuds/MiaStory
Summary: Gen-Attolia one shot. The king is sick. He asks Attolia to tell him a story
Relationships: Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Tell me a story

Eugenides was laying in her bed, supported by extra pillows, his scarred chest showing through his nightshirt and Attolia watched him half annoyed half amused as he rebuffed the attempts of the new physician's apprentice to spoon feed him his medicine. The young man looked befuddled. Most of his adult patients, received whatever concoction the physician mixed for them with gratitude. Except the king of Attolia who acted like a petulant child.

Attolia shook her head slightly. The new King of Attolia and his antics was all the palace have talked about for the past few months, ever since Eugenides managed to thoroughly defeat the Baron Erendites, so it was hard to believe that the physician's apprentice had come in her royal chambers so thoroughly unprepared, so completely ignorant of her husband's character.

"You cannot make the king take his medicine," Eugenides told the apprentice sternly, "tell him he cannot!" he objected loudly, turning to her.

Attolia shook her head. "Just leave the medicine with my attendants," she said quietly. "I'll make sure he takes it..."

She ignored the angry glare Eugenides directed her way and motioned both the doctor's apprentice and the ladies in waiting to step out of the room.

"Must you always be so difficult with the doctor," she sighed, sitting at her husband's bedside.

"It's one of my few joys in life," he smirked half playfully.

Attolia rolled her eyes, and she run her fingers through his curls.

"Really?" she asked. "My king must have a really tedious life if he needs to resort to such childish antics for entertainment..."

He didn't reply, he just let out a content sigh and closed his eyes. He wasn't too sick, he'd been running a mild fever the last few days. It wasn't a serious ailment. But he still manages to whine about it and act like he was in the verge of death while simultaneously ignoring all his doctors' advice.

Attolia sat on his bedside, watching him lay there, his amputated arm laying on the pillow above his head, his eyes half closed, looking so innocent, she couldn't help but smile. It was hard to believe that he was the man who upended her court, and arranged for half her personal guard to be sent to key outpost at border towns, while earning her trust and theirs. Sometimes their whole marriage seemed like a complicated impossible dream. Attolia just couldn't believe he was hers.

She sat there quietly, lost in her thoughts until she heard her husbands even breathing. She gathered the pleats of her skirt and tried to stand up.

His left hand reached for her arm.

"Don't go yet," he said quietly.

"There is a lot to do today, my King," she meant to protest, but she leaned her hand on the mattress instead.

"I won't leave," she replied instead.

"Tell me a story, my Queen..."

Attolia shook her head. "I do not pretend to have your flair for lying and wild storytelling," she protested.

"Try anyway," he shrugged.

Attolia rummaged through her brain for and old story or a myth her husband wouldn't already know.

"When the old god's were taking their yearly rest after one of their feasts, and were way too busy to listen to the common men's troubles, they retired to their mountain, assigning a nymph, to go as their messenger to the humans. They trusted her to hear the people's supplications and to report to them. The nymph was young, inexperienced, she could hardly distinguish what was serious and what was not. Was the rain for the farmer's crops a serious enough plea to disturb the gods? Was the tearful child's prayer an emergency when he'd been unfairly slapped by his stepmother? What about the maiden's plight for a groom, what about the broken heart of the soldier whose lover didn't wait for him to come home but married another, what about the wild chirps of the bird that had fallen from his nest, the lost lamb that was stuck in the thorny brush... The nymph wrote down every person's prayer's carefully and brought it to the deities attention. The ancient gods laughed.

"Do not disturb us with such petty problems," they said. "Do you not know it is our year of rest? Have you no respect for our time? Must you bother us with simple problems?"

The nymph apologized profusely and went back to work. But again she found herself confused, she didn't know what to do. All the prayers seemed important. The little girl that broke her clay doll prayed and asked for another, the boy who got lost in the woods, the sailor that was thrown in jail and had no way of contacting his pregnant wife that it would be a year before he got home...

She took all these requests to the gods and this time they didn't laugh.

"You must be really ignorant to think that these are problems worthy of our attention!" they said and they motioned the servants who grabbed the nymph by the arms and threw her out of their resting place and locked the large gates behind her...

The nymph bewildered and disheartened wandered across mountains and valley, crying. Se still gathered the prayers and supplications but she didn't know what to do with them. The people came at her for help and when she couldn't offer any they glared at her. They shook their head walking away. "She is no help at all," they whispered to each other. The nymph got angry. Angry with the gods who didn't care enough and angry with the humans who kept coming to her with their problems. The nymph stopped accepting the peoples requests. She wandered the mountains alone avoiding all humans. One night she got lost on a hillside and an old forgotten path took her to a goat herder's hovel... "

Eugenides was certainly asleep this time around. Attolia could hear him snoring gently. She got up from his bedside and she sat on her desk. She sat on her desk, and dipped her quill in ink. She had been meaning to write to Eddis for a few days, she thought, and now seemed like a good time. She was reluctant to admit that she didn't really want to leave the king's side.

She was two pages into her letter to Eddis when she heard him cough behind her softly and then she felt his fingers on her shoulder. She didn't jump. She reached for his hand instead.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

He didn't reply, but he did dip his face in the curve of her neck.

She shuddered as his lips traveled down her neck.

"Tell me about the goat herder," he whispered. "Was he handsome? Was he clever? Did he help the queen?"

"What queen?" she protested. "The story was about a nymph!"

"I could have sworn there was a queen somewhere..." he grinned, then he grazed her ear with his teeth. She closed her eyes, trying hard not to show him she was trembling. "You really should be in bed," she tried to say.

"You would deny a man's dying wish!" he whispered.

You are hardly dying my king, she meant to say but instead she turned around to face him. "Would I really be your dying wish?" she asked softly.

He ran his fingers through her hair slowly, taking in her alabaster skin and her dark eyes, his stub of a hand curling around her neck pulling her in closer. She searched his eyes and then without giving him a chance to answer her question, she cupped his face and her lips met his.


End file.
